Just Twice
by BloodWineVampiress
Summary: It has been a thousand years since the reign of King Kelson Haldane. All of the Eleven Kingdoms have been conquered by the Aelian Empire. Their capitals have been moved, their names have been changed, their people forced to live in poverty. Revolution is in the air. One rebel goes looking for a way to win the fight and finds something...different from what she was seeking.
1. Worry

Carter Ioanna set his pen down and tried to rub the furrows out of his brow. He'd done all he could for Gwynedd. It was more accurate to say, "what had been Gwynedd". The proud kingdom of that name had long since died. Internal strife had been killing the country long before the invaders arrived. Weak kings had left the country vulnerable. Long since vanished were, and had been, the days of kings like Brion or Kelson Haldane.

The place where Carter now lived took up the space of Gwynedd but it was the colony of Iscalis. It had been under imperial rule for generations now but a history of violent revolts had prevented it from officially joining the empire. Some of the more ignorant revolutionaries thought this was what they wanted but Carter knew that living under the thumb of the empire without the protection of being a part of her was the worst thing for either Gwynedd or Iscalis.

No, the revolutionaries should be vying for either of two extremes. Either work to be accepted into the empire or endeavor to be a free state once again. It wasn't surprising that the people, having lived under the oppression of an empire desperate to crush their independent spirit for centuries, chose the latter option almost immediately.

Carter wasn't the first one to see this plan of action, nor was he the only one to know its inevitable requirements. Only a family with a history of as much power and charisma as the Haldane line would do. Thank God they hadn't been lost. Oh, they'd been forgotten and muddled and the name had changed time and again but Carter's grandfather had finally found them fifty years ago.

Of course that didn't mean that finding the Haldane line had solved their problems. If that were the case, Carter would be living in Gwynedd and probably well, too. Instead, he was running a shabby little boarding school for the children of Gwynedd with underground operations to teach Deryni children magic.

If the Deryni of Gwynedd thought they had it bad during the time before King Kelson, they would never have survived during Carter's lifetime. The empire was deathly afraid of Deryni, having never come across any before reaching Gwynedd's western shore. The moment they'd discovered the Deryni, they immediately put into action anti-Deryni practices that endured to the present. Certainly, Gwynedd had suffered but it was nothing compared to the atrocities that had been committed in Torenth.

There were a few Torenthi students under Carter's tutelage but fewer Torenthi Deryni survived. Gwyneddan Deryni were just more used to hiding what they were. Even the age of tolerance that came after King Kelson's reign was tinged by wariness on both sides. In hindsight, it was a good thing because it saved too many lives to count.

What was most surprising to Carter was that the surviving Haldanes were still Deryni. The royal line had taken a decidedly Deryni turn after Kelson, but Carter couldn't understand why the traditionally human line didn't simply dilute the blood to nonexistence and blend back in with the majority of the population. Instead, it seemed like they had purposefully sought out Deryni to marry, their heritage now intertwined with almost every major Deryni family in the land.

The two remaining Haldanes were quite something themselves. They were brother and sister, orphaned after their parents were killed in an imperial raid like common dogs. There seemed to be someone looking out for the children, however, because two days before their parents were killed a woman appeared out of nowhere. She was convinced by a strange, red-haired borderman to take the children in. They still called her mother.

The boy was honestly a bit of a disappointment. He was interested in neither war nor politics. He had a weak constitution, a blood disorder that would eventually kill him. Still, he had incredible magic and a healing ability for which there was no apparent precedent in his family.

His sister, on the other hand, would have made a wonderful queen. She hadn't much of a head for politics but she could read people well, even without her significant Deryni powers. Like her brother, she was very talented when it came to magic and she had the inclination to direct it towards righteous violence when protecting what she cared about. She also had a fascination with history which was used to indoctrinate her with a hatred of the empire even from a young age. Her only flaw was that she was female and thus unable to possess the Haldane potential.

The Haldane potential was not so much useful in and of itself as it didn't make a trained Deryni significantly stronger than he already was. It's use was far more potent now as a device of propaganda. What better tool to reinstate a fallen family with than saying that no one else can do what they can do. A thousand years ago, it might not have been true. The potential could have been spread thinly across a dozen noble families, but the nobles were long gone now. Now, the Haldanes were the only ones left and they only miraculously so. If another miracle didn't happen soon, the Haldanes themselves would be lost forever.

A blue light appeared in the room and filled it for a moment before focusing down to project the image of Carter's wife before him. Holographic images in real-time were cutting edge out in the boondocks of Iscalis. Not so in the rest of the empire. Carter couldn't even begin to imagine what sort of tech they had there.

"Tom's on the phone," she said, image wavering only slightly since they'd had some kid come take a look at it last week. "He wants to talk to you."

"All right, thanks dear," Carter replied, feeling too tired to listen to his son's report. Perhaps he was getting too old for all this stuff of revolution. As his wife's image vanished with the blue light, Carter pressed a red button built into the wood of his vintage desk and heard the faint buzz that accompanied an open line.

"You there, son?" he asked.

"Yeah," Tomas replied, clearing his throat after the syllable. Full-room phones like this were common now in Iscalis. Apparently some of the larger cities like Rhemuth, Valoret, or the new capital the empire had built were just now getting holographic phones but Carter wasn't fool enough to think that they would be helpful. Holographic phones were easily hacked into and the empire's laws generally dealt only with the most recent technology, abandoning to old as obsolete. Except, in Gwynedd, it wasn't.

"What's new?"

"Aidyn's in the hospital," Tomas related dutifully, though it was by no means an enviable task to tell his father that the last male Haldane was once again in the hospital. "Doctors say it's stress. Rhian's with him now. She won't leave his side. Nat's not any better, though. I don't think either of them will be going to class tomorrow night and they weren't there tonight. That's okay as far as Natania is concerned but I'm afraid..."

"Rhian is too confident," Carter supplied. "But there's no cure for that but time and experience. More training won't help her. Still, I don't like the way she just drops everything to sit by her brother's bedside. It's not the first time he's been in the hospital and it isn't as if he were alone. She needs to be stronger. She has people to lead."

"That's a...little harsh..." Tomas said hesitantly. "Aidyn _is_ her only family, after all."

"Ah well, there's nothing to be done about that," Carter said, acting as if he hadn't heard what his son had just said. "She's young. She'll learn. If they live long enough to learn, that is. Keep me posted on our prince's condition and his sister's reaction. That's all. Good night."

Carter cut off the call on his son. He rubbed the furrows in his brow again. It looked like he wouldn't be able to retire any time soon. Those children fighting for their country's freedom would not make it a month without his experience and supervision. He was just lucky that his supervision was all that it took to keep them in line.

* * *

Author's Note: This is a very tentative start to a story. I don't want to spoil the plot but I have to say that the story is rather complex. It will eventually make sense if I keep the story going. That being said, I'll only keep the story going if I have reason to believe someone's reading it. Feedback in comments is incredibly welcome and very much encouraged. I'm trying to improve my writing so any hints be it execution or mechanics would be much appreciated.

For those of you who like dates (I like dates) this chapter takes place in mid-October of 2128.


	2. Hospital Food

Rhian Bryste yawned widely, forgetting that she wasn't at home and that she was expected to keep up appearances. She lifted her spoon; full of the gluey oatmeal served in the hospital cafeteria for breakfast, and then turned it over to see if the gruel would return to the bowl. It did not.

"I thought I'd find you here, Rhi." Rhian was staring at her bowl so she only saw the edges of a striped shirt move to sit down across from her. She flicked her cool grey eyes up to see that it was her cousin, Tomas.

They were really cousins, through their mothers. Their mothers had been twins, actually. It was a little surprising, then, that Tomas's father wouldn't take Rhian or her brother in when their parents died. This was something that had never crossed her mind as a child but she understood only too well now. She couldn't quite bring herself to forgive her Uncle Carter but she tried not to let herself blame Tomas, too.

"Even if you try to take me by force, I'm not going to class," she told him flatly. With a quick flick of her wrist, she turned her spoon like a catapult to fling the oatmeal at Tomas but the mash stayed put. "I'm not sure I want to eat this anymore," she muttered and dropped the spoon into the bowl.

"I'm not here to drag you back to class," Tomas answered. "Even father agreed that was a lost cause. No, I just want to know how Aidyn's holding up."

"He's sleeping right now," Rhian said, distractedly trying to peel open a small carton of orange juice. "Nat's with him. When I'm done here, we'll trade out so she can get some breakfast. I don't think she slept all night. You know how she worries."

"Yeah." If Natania had any healing powers at all, her worry might have been useful. As it was, Tomas feared she'd only be a hindrance in the war that would inevitably come—despite her considerable training.

"You need anything else?" Rhian had finished opening the carton and was not fiddling meticulously with the plastic wrapper around the straw.

"Ah...did anything strange happen since I was here earlier?" Tomas asked. He looked around the room warily. The only people around were sleepy third shift nurses who were catching a bite to eat before heading home to bed.

"If by strange, you mean that Alec and his creepy friend showed up to see if Aid was okay..." Rhian was using the straw to vigorously stir her orange juice now. "...Then, yeah."

Alec's creepy friend was Keegan Deiniol. Keegan claimed for be a third cousin of the Bryste siblings on the Haldane side. Tomas's father was convinced that this wasn't true but there was no way to prove it for or against. Keegan vowed that he had no designs on the throne and that he would rather see Rhian rule than himself but they all knew that if the Haldane potential showed up in Keegan, he would have to take precedence over Rhian.

Personally, Tomas was more afraid of Alec. Alec MacKenzie was a wild young borderer who had shown up from nowhere about twenty-five years ago. He'd quickly proven himself loyal to the rebellion and had been a great asset with his intimate knowledge of fighting and battle strategy. What frightened Tomas, though, was that even after twenty-five years Alec was still a wild young borderer. No one ever mentioned it but Alec hadn't changed in twenty-five years. At first, Tomas had thought Alec was an android of some sort but...Tomas began to doubt himself.

_No, I meant imperial strangeness._ Tomas sent his irked correction directly to Rhian's mind, suddenly hyper aware of the hospital staff in the cafeteria with them.

Rhian smiled a secret smile, trained to look like she'd just had a very amusing thought that no one else should know. Perhaps she really had. The only person who seemed to know remotely anything about the inner workings of the princess's mind was Alec and he wasn't sharing his knowledge.

Deliberately, Rhian picked up her carton of juice and began to sip it with a thoughtful expression on her face. _Nothing happened, _her mind voice answered his.

"I'd better get going," Tomas said aloud, pushing his chair back and standing. "Class starts soon, wouldn't want to be late." _Thank you. That's just what I wanted to hear._

"Tootles." Rhian waved goodbye. _I wish we could be free to be who we are all the time…_

Tomas was already walking away. _If we get our country back, we will be._


	3. Tears

Two strong hands clamped down on Rhian's shoulders, startling her into upsetting the travel-sized chess board that was halfway on her lap. Pawns, knights, and kings went flying. Rhian stared at the mess in shock for a moment, and then stood in outrage. The rest of the chess pieces dropped to the floor.

"Alec!" she cried in her faux yell that was reserved for hospitals. Sadly, that faux yell was very well-practiced. "I was winning!"

Her brother laughed weakly. "Thanks," he said, "now we can call it a draw." He looked a little jaundiced, but that was mainly the poor lighting reflected off his peaked complexion and his wheat blond hair.

Alec soon began to laugh as well. Even Rhian was grinning when they were joined by the woman who had raised both Aidyn and Rhian for most of their lives. She looked around the room slowly; taking in the scene, then shook her head in disbelieving amusement.

Marin Bryste was in her mid-thirties, but she barely looked thirty. This wasn't something that was often mentioned, but it was often speculated in hushed tones behind closed doors that Alec had taught her his secret to eternal youth. Still, her youth was not nearly as striking as his and could easily be put to good aging. She wasn't a very large woman, but there was sharpness in her hazel eyes that commanded respect. Her hair was a pale blonde and she wore it long, like a gossamer veil. That day, it was woven into a tight braid which was then wound into a bun and kept in place by a pair of hand carved sticks.

"Natania kindly decided ta go hame," she said with a slight hint of the border accent she'd tried for so long to erase. Her voice was soft but it didn't quite cover a darker tone that implied Natania hadn't had much choice in the matter.

"Rhian will be headed that direction shortly," Alec replied, placing his hands once more on the princess's shoulders.

"What?" Rhian wormed out from under the borderer's grasp. She turned to glare at Alec. "I'm not leaving my brother."

"You need yer rest," Marin pointed out gently, trying to coax Rhian into agreement.

"But—" Rhian still tried to protest.

"She's right, Rhi," Aidyn agreed. His sister whirled around to face him, the shock of betrayal clear on her face. She'd hoped at least he would defend her. They had to stick together after all, since they were the only real family they had. "You're no good to anyone if you make yourself sick trying to take care of me. Nothing's going to change if you go home for a couple of hours. If it does, Mum will call you right away and you can come back. I'm not in any life-threatening position after all. They're just trying to make me rest, and I'll rest better knowing that you're taking care of yourself."

"Fine." The word promised more difficulty from Rhian, so Alec was cautious as he followed the last daughter of the Haldane line out of the hospital. She didn't make any fuss as they walked out to the car but she was brooding and silent on the way home, not even singing with the music, which was her favorite band.

Finally, afraid that Rhian's silence was caused by internal plotting, Alec could keep his own silence no longer. "Why can't you understand that we're just trying to do what's best for you?" he asked as they climbed the stairs up to the small apartment Rhian shared with Natania.

"Best for me, my foot," Rhian complained. "Why can't you just understand that I want to be with my only family as he slowly dies?" She stopped on the stairs to fix Alec with a hard look.

"Because I can't by with my only family as he risks his life every day for our cause," Alec countered. Rhian faltered, actually taking a step back and nearly tumbling down the stairs. Alec caught her and apologized. "I'm sorry, that was a low hit."

Rhian was mainly shocked because Alec never mentioned family, or even friends. He acted like his life had started when he'd joined the cause for reinstating the Haldane royalty some years before Rhian's birth. That was probably the reason Tomas seemed to be think that Alec was an android.

The only other exception to Alec's general rule of secrecy was when he'd admitted having known Natania before. This was the reason Rhian was allowed to live with her.

"Will the two of you stop shouting on the landing and just come in, now?" Without their noticing, Nat had opened the door to the apartment and was standing on the threshold in a state of semi-undress with a less than pleased expression on her face.

It was rare to see the usually modest eastern woman like that and the effect never failed to make Alec flustered. Rhian couldn't blame him; Nat had a sort of dusky beauty that would make any man fall. Personally, she was jealous.

Rhian had had an incurable crush on Alec for years and she would have done anything to get him to blush like that. She would have done anything just to get him to notice her. It was to no avail. No matter what Rhian tried, she could not get Alec to look at her the way she wanted.

Not in the mood to be reminded of how many levels she failed on, Rhian stomped up the last of the stairs and pushed past Natania into the apartment. Nat shrugged at Alec, who quickly turned to leave. Nat shut the door carefully, and turned to face Rhian, who was curled up on the sofa, contemplating her misfortune.

"What bug bit your butt?" she asked.

"It's not fair," was all the mumbled reply she got from Rhian.

"Life isn't fair," Natania replied, "especially not for princesses and even more so when that princess is trying to take her country back from invaders after her ancestors already lost."

"I don't feel like a princess," Rhian grumbled. "Princesses are supposed to be beautiful, and no matter what hardships they go through, they always get their prince charming in the end. But I'm not beautiful and no matter how hard I try, my prince charming doesn't notice me at all."

"That's not true, Rhian," Nat protested. "You're beautiful. Most girls would kill for looks like yours."

"But they're not good enough," Rhian sighed. "They're not as good as yours. I wish I could make a guy act like that." She nodded to the door in reference to what had just happened between Nat and Alec.

Natania glanced at the door as well. "Oh…that. You think I'm…with Alec." Nat laughed. "No. He's just embarrassed because I used to be so prudish when I was younger. No, Alec is very happily married."

"Married?" Rhian choked.

"Yes, it's surprising, isn't it? They don't get to see each other very often, but they're still so close. She was sent to the main imperial country for work." Seeing the shocked look on Rhian's face, Nat added, "She used to be around when you were little. Don't you remember her? Meagan?"

Rhian tried to remember but no images of any Meagans came to mind. She carefully packed away her emotions on the topic into a little corner of her mind to take out and re-examine when she was alone.

"You know what? I'm tired," she told Nat, shaking her head slowly. "I'm going to go take a nap. Maybe we could talk about this later. Would you wake me up when you want to go see Aid again? I'd like to go with. They can kick me out for an afternoon, but they can't keep me away forever."

Having said that, Rhian promptly went to her bedroom and locked to door behind her. She didn't want Natania walking in on her as she cried.


	4. University

Rhian woke early in the morning. She glanced at her alarm clock, glowing in the grey morning light, and buried her face in her pillow. _Too early_, she thought. It was much too early when her mind was reeling from the events of the day before and a half-remembered nightmare.

As she put her thoughts in order for the day, she realised that she had fallen asleep in her clothes. Feeling itchy and slightly annoyed with herself, she dragged her body off her bed and shambled over to her closet for some fresh clothes.

It wasn't until Rhian was fully waking up under the warm spray of the shower that she remembered telling Natania to wake her when she was going back to see Aidyn again. She'd assumed that Nat was planning to go back later that evening but Rhian hadn't been woken. It wasn't for sleeping through a knock on her door, either, because Natania had many fool-proof ways of waking her. Rhian hurried through her shower and went to check the apartment to see if Nat really hadn't left.

She was annoyed but not particularly surprised to find that Nat was not there. She grunted to see that the woman had even had the gall to leave a note saying that she was going to visit Aidyn and instructing Rhian to rest up and go to class that evening. Rhian crumpled the note and tossed it in the trash.

There was no way Rhian was going to class that evening, or any other for that matter, because Alec would invariably be there and she didn't want to see Alec right then. She hated to skip class when it wasn't about Aidyn and, despite his condition, she wasn't thinking about him when she made the decision to skip that night's class—but she was the top student, doing more teaching than learning, anyway these days. If she did a little training during the day, when no one was there, she would get by just fine.

Having made her decision, Rhian packed her gym bag and grabbed a breakfast packet to eat on the way. Breakfast packets tasted revolting but they were some of the healthiest things available and they were convenient.

Rhian decided to walk to the University. Having been raised a country girl, Rhian was disinclined to like the closed in lifestyle of the city. The stark, sterile environment was so different from the verdant landscapes of her childhood that she was sometimes overcome by the alien place, even after she'd been living in the city for some years. The best consolation she had at these times was walking into the University district.

The University of Rhemuth was the oldest in Iscalis. It had been founded by King Kelson about a thousand years prior with the purpose of recovering the Deryni magic that had been lost during the centuries of prejudice against the Deryni. With the coming of the Empire, the University had lost that function but it was still a very reputable place of instruction. It was said that important Aelians attended school there, but Rhian had never run into any personally. Then again, Rhian's main purpose in attending the school was not to sit through the normal lecture. No, Rhian's purpose was far more closely related to the University's original goal.

Far beneath the oldest buildings of the University, secret chambers existed. They had been built with the utmost care when the revolution and finally become truly serious about attaining complete independence from the Empire. So far, they had not been discovered.

The chambers were used as training grounds for the revolutionaries. They held night "classes" for combat, especially guerrilla tactics, and advanced Deryni techniques. There were also rooms for planning attacks on the Empire and other things the revolutionaries might need. The more Rhian thought about it, the more she realised the chambers were more of a home base for the rebellion than anything.

It was to these chambers that Rhian was heading. She deftly navigated the labyrinth that lead to them which she'd been forced to memorize upon her arrival in Rhemuth. There was something relaxing about the maze that led deeper and deeper into the earth. Perhaps it was because she felt safe in the knowledge that the Imperials would never be able to get into the underground sanctuary.

After Rhian reached the chambers, she changed into her gym clothes to work out a little before she focused on the more tedious Deryni techniques. As she entered the gym, she realised that there was one person other than Alec whom she didn't want to run into no matter what. That was her so-called cousin, Keegan, who was obliviously doing push-ups in the corner—the only other person present.


End file.
